ULOB Soul and Body 2

Summary

1. Karenin wakes Tereza.


2. Radio politics- tension- no privacy


3. umbrella fight with women


4. concentration camp= Terza's past/mother


5. Body reflecting the soul?


6. what's in a soul?


7. Persecution and lack of privacy- man identified by photos of prague spring


8. flirtation and fidelity


9. Drunk boy flirts with Tereza


10. flirtation with engineer


11. Tomas' hair =infidelity...he asks her to go to petrin hill


12. Petrin Hill


13. No blindfold for Tereza at Petrin Hill


14. Tereza's grief


15. The Engineer's lure


16. In the flat of the engineer


17. banal sex with engineer


18. The engineers toilet


19. Tereza leaves


20. The crippled crow


21. The crow dies


22. Tereza looks in the mirror


23. Fear of the 'engineer'


24. Fear of the secret police


25. Holiday- identity of Czechoslavakia has changed


26. Fear of Tomas knowing her infidelity


27. Paranoia and confusion


28. Benches in the river

Themes and motifs

• Soul and body


• Crudeness


• Death


• forced situations


• Fear


• Paranoia


• Confusion


• Vertigo


• The body


• nudity


• the past vs the future


• benches in the river


• aesthetisism


• the crow


• identity

Characters

Tereza

This section focuses almost solely on Tereza. We fid her dissatisfied with life, paraoid of threat, fearing Tomas and other women. She feels too emotionally attached and wishes she could live more like her mother and be more of a body than a soul. This is why she constantly feels vertigo.

Tomas

By the sole act of Petrin Hill Tomas becomes more sinister. As this section does not come from his point of view we cann't know his reasoning behind it. He appears cold, emotionless. Tereza's opposite as she constantly bursts into tears in this section. He is perceived as strong in his coldness.

The Engineer

A relatively unexplored character. He is shrouded in mystery. We do not discover if he is a member of the secret police or not. He is alien and different.

Place

Set in Prague once more. Prague has become fractured. A place of paranoia. All the inhabitants seem to live in fear of discovery of blackmail or sin. We are reminded that Prague is not the romatisised fatasy of Franzs' imagination. There are various references to Prague and Czechoslavakia becoming Russian and no longer having its own identity.

Narrative Voice

Soul and Body 2 is far more narrative than any other section so far. Kundera chooses to show us this emotional stage of Czech history through Tereza as this means that the emotioanl side of it, the entrapment of the situation can e fully seen as only a character such as Tereza can fully display the fear and paranoia within the USSR's 'occupation'.